Frank Bruni had two selections in his “For the love of sentences” feature that I liked. The first was about the small private submarine that killed everyone on board because it was not safe at certain depths. It was in Vanity Fair and was by Susan Casey on the mindset of Stockton Rush, the CEO of the company who brushed off the warnings: “In a culture that has adopted the ridiculous mantra ‘move fast and break things,’ that type of arrogance can get a person far. But in the deep ocean, the price of admission is humility — and it’s nonnegotiable. The abyss doesn’t care if you went to Princeton, or that your ancestors signed the Declaration of Independence. If you want to go down into her world, she sets the rules.”
The second one was by Matt Bai in WAPO about you-know-whom: “Asking Donald Trump to pledge loyalty to anything really, other than himself, is like asking my dog to write a novel. She might look at you like she understands the concept, but trust me, she doesn’t.”
Have you heard of Rene Lalique? I haven’t. He was in the clue at 12A today: “Style of René Lalique’s glasswork.” The answer is DECO. Here are two examples:
He started off in jewelry design but became better known for his work in glass. He was responsible for the walls of lighted glass and elegant colored glass columns which filled the dining room and “grand salon” of the SS Normandie, and the interior fittings, cross, screens, reredos and font of St. Matthew’s Church at Millbrook in Jersey (Lalique’s “Glass Church”). [That’s Jersey in the Channel Islands, not NJ, USA.] Here’s the glass altarpiece:
The best places to see his glasswork in the U.S. are the Met in NYC, and the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, NY. His granddaughter, Marie Claude-Lalique was also a glass maker. She died in 2003 in Ft. Myers, FL.
Bryce Harper of the Phillies started his MLB career young, so even though he’s already accomplished much on the diamond, including winning the NL MVP award in 2021, he’s still only 30. Last Monday, against the Giants, he hit an inside-the-park home run — one of the most exciting plays in baseball. Chatting about it later, Harper placed his hands together, looked upward and said, “Thank goodness for Mr. Montgomery.” One might wonder what the hell he meant, since there was no Montgomery on either team roster.
Harper is a student of baseball history and has an incredible baseball memory. He was referring to David Montgomery who was the president of the Phils 20 years ago when the outfield walls were being designed (he died in 2019). It was his idea to incorporate an unusual nook or angle here and there so that on occasion something crazy could happen. It worked. There have been 14 inside-the-park HRs in the stadium — still a rarity, but more likely than without Montgomery’s designs. You can see, below, Harper’s shot took a funny angle off the wall.
At 42A the clue was “Pale in comparison?” and the answer was ASHIER.
Joe Dipinto posted:
ASHIER = a worker at a French outdoor café whose job is to empty the ashtrays.
It brought up a nice memory for me, so I posted:
Several hundred years ago when I was in college, my statistics prof explained “spurious correlation” by telling us that some study showed that there was a statistical relationship between car thefts and cigar smoking. Of course, that’s ridiculous, so it’s a “spurious” correlation. I was in his office later that day for some reason and I theorized that perhaps the thieves were after the ash trays in the cars. A terrible line, but a nice memory.
I caught the end of the Nats-Yanks game today and it was about as good as baseball gets. The Nats were up 5-4. The Yanks had the tying run on second with 2 down in the eighth, but DC brought their closer, Finnegan, in early, a Detroit boy, and he blew away the last Yank in the 8th. So now it was up to Washington to try to get some insurance in the 9th — because Judge was due up in the Yankee half and he’s murder. A pesky Nat, Jake Alu, stroked a single to deep right-center and was called safe stretching it into a double ahead of Judge’s throw — but the call was reversed on appeal!! Yer out! Then little things started happening — a pair of infield singles, a hit batsman (ouch!), stuff like that – and that insurance run was cobbled together after all. So it was 6-4 Nats, going to the bottom of the 9th.
The heart of the Yankee order was up. A sharp single and a strike out brought Judge up as the tying run. Finnegan got him to fly out, whew, but hit after hit after hit made it a one-run game and the bases were bulging with bombers. Bader was up and drove the ball to deep left center. Off the bat it seemed gone to me. Nat centerfielder Alex Call went racing after it and overran it, but stretched out his glove to haul it in, barely. He staggered towards the wall but held on — game over! — and he let out a roar of joy and relief.
Get the hell out of town fast, boys — you stole that one.
See you tomorrow! Thanks for popping by! It’s opening day for my fall semester tomorrow, kinahora. I’ll let you know how it goes.
The Wellington Files 